January 17, 2007

Public Service Announcement

You’ve probably already given up on your new year’s resolution. And why not? I mean honestly, how nutritious are brussel sprouts? And whose even gonna notice a missing five pounds? Everybody knows that resolutions are just a gimmick cooked up by the diet and exercise industry.

If however, you are in the vast majority who don’t bother with resolutions at all, to you I say: it’s not too late. In fact, I’d be willing to bet that people who make their resolutions after January 1 are more likely to keep them. We are a contemplative lot, and contemplation leads to resolve. So, get on board.

For your encouragement, here’s the process I used to narrow my list: Start by listing all the resolutions you could possibly make and then categorize them. For example, in my PERSONAL GROOMING column, which was the longest by far, I wrote: dress better, take care of my skin, and shower more.

But then I stopped myself. I remembered what I learned once in an All Hands Professional Development session held, incidentally, in a field. (The terminally upbeat facilitator explained to us that nature was supposed to help us think “out of the box,” which she said with a wink and some finger quotes to indicate that the box we were supposed be thinking outside of was the office building itself. Mind blowing.) Anyway, the facilitator explained that all goals should be SMART: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely.

So I went back to the Grooming list to revise: 1. Never again wear the t-shirt I slept in to drop the girls at school. 2. Shower every day, except those days when my hair looks extra good. 3. Replace Jergen’s with proper moisturizer and remember to use it at night.

My husband applauded this list, as he has always been a fan of small but achievable resolutions. His best one—he wanted me to pass on to you—was “Wash hands three times a day.” He swore this protected him from catching colds. [Now he has given that job to Airborne, which takes after being within ten feet of a smothered cough or a blown nose.]

The next category, which my husband also encouraged, was WIFELY DUTIES. He suggested cooking dinner more and by that, I took it to mean that Cornmeal Pizza from Whole Foods, while delicious and pricey, does not qualify as a home-cooked, square meal. He also pondered that I could be greatly improved if only I would put away the laundry immediately, instead of dressing out of the baskets, as is my wont. I took this one under advisement, struggling as I do with all clothing matters.

On to the next category, the most substantive: INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT. With New Yorkers going unread week after week and the Sunday New York Times also proving to be more than I can digest, I knew I had to stay small here. So the resolution was to find my own answers to all the questions I usually ask my husband when he gets home from work, burning questions like Did Olga Korbet ever compete against Nadia Commenchi? Where did Auld Lang Syne [not Old Ang’s Sign by the way] come from? And, How do you spell nauseous?

This I was able to act on immediately. On the web, I learned all kinds of tidbits, one leading to another, in a seemingly endless chain. For instance, Auld Lang Syne, which means Old Long Ago, uses the same exact tune as The Unviersity of Virginia’s fight. Then, I found a list of people born on January 1. Siddig El Nigoumi, the ceramicist (that’s all it said; maybe my husband knows more) and Holling Gustav Vapor (the character on “Northern Exposure” who was married to the young cute ditsy girl). I pushed away thoughts about the uselessness of this information and instead, reveled in my new supply of cocktail party trivia. I covered so much ground in one sitting, I think I may have knocked off this resolution for the year.

Interestingly, while I was developing my intellect, I noticed an ad that said: Achieve your new year’s resolutions with cosmetic surgery. So while I’m hold with the nurse, let me suggest that the best resolution may just be to love your life just as it is and never get caught taking things too seriously.